


the midnight train, going anywhere

by AnnaofAza



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (the jiangshi version minus hopping), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Past Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Spirit World, Vampire Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27053830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaofAza/pseuds/AnnaofAza
Summary: "What are you hoping to find?”Shiro shrugs. “A new life.”There’s a choked sort of chuckle, much to Shiro’s confusion. “And how are you hoping to get it?”
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 55





	the midnight train, going anywhere

**Author's Note:**

> This is for this week's Trick or Sheith, and uses all prompts: vampire, trapped, and shadows. Absurdly, I got "Don't Stop Believin'" in my head after I saw the last prompt and this happened. 

He should have packed an extra charger.

But the train’s full-speed and it’s too late. Shiro shrugs regretfully and lets his knapsack rest on his lap. Having a phone on a fifteen percent battery isn’t ideal, but there are worse things.

He left his credit card, his old phone, and whatever he could not carry easily behind. Hopefully, his family would sleep in late, as they usually did on Friday, and not find out he was missing until the afternoon. His only goodbye was in a sealed envelope, addressed to his ex-fiancé.

The only one who knew what he was up to was his grandmother, who beckoned him into her room as soon as he got to the door—making his heart seize with dread and guilt—and furtively slipped a ticket into his hand, faded and worn soft around the edges but “still should work.”

“I should have stayed,” she told him. “But I felt they deserved a goodbye, and I was never able to return. Do better than me, Takashi.”

Armed with covertly packaged daifuku and whispered directions, Shiro found himself at the local train station, hesitantly handing the battered ticket to a bored-looking collector, who directed him to a platform bathed in moonlight.

The train had appeared in almost seconds, as if it had been waiting for him.

Shiro had set down his one rollaway suitcase and his knapsack with a sigh of relief and a tingle in his shoulders, but no one so much approached him to check his ticket. Shadows curled around his legs and shoulders—lights out for sleeping passengers, probably—and he felt a sense of tranquility for the first time in years.

Now, Shiro thinks, he should sleep. It doesn’t matter anyway; he was going to take a laissez-faire approach to his destiny and get off at wherever “felt right.”

But he can’t: leaving that place is like a runner’s high, leaving him trembling with energy. He can’t see anything out the windows, only darkness, and everything is completely silent, not even a whizzing of train tracks or snoring from passengers.

Then, he hears the music.

It’s muffled, like a radio playing in another room, but it slithers into his ears, perking up his brain like a freshly poured cup of coffee. Without thinking, Shiro rises from his seat, cradling his knapsack close and walking down the narrow aisle, not noticing that every seat is unoccupied or that his footsteps make no sounds, or that his left side is no longer weak.

A velvet curtain is draped in front of an exit he didn’t notice before, and as he pushes it aside, catches the scent of springtime buds, reminiscent of picnics with his cousins.

The room is low-lit, though Shiro can see no visible light source, shadows flickering along the walls like fire. Wrapped around half the room seems to be a bar, but instead of alcohol, has jars of herbs and crushed fruits and vegetables. He stares at one, filled to the brim with tiny white and yellow flowers without so much as a spot of decay. There are signs on the wall, in a language he cannot read, one with an X over a knife of gleaming silver.

The source of the music is center-stage, humming seemingly under his breath. He’s hunched on a three-legged stool, swinging his legs, dark hair covering his face, with a robe-like garment that drapes around him like mist. Looking closer, Shiro can see pearlesque embroidery of shapes that remind him of curled cats’ tails and pomegranate seeds.

The man looks up, and Shiro blushes from his neck to his ears. “Sorry to bother you, but you sing nicely.”

It’s an understatement.

“Thanks,” the man says dryly, taking him in, fingers drumming on the underside of the stool. “Haven’t seen you here before.”

“I just got on,” Shiro replies. “Do you travel a lot, or something?”

He smiles, with a hint of sharp teeth, and Shiro blinks when his eyes seem to glow a soft purple, rising and falling like lit coals. “You can say that. What are you hoping to find?”

Shiro shrugs. “A new life.”

There’s a choked sort of chuckle, much to Shiro’s confusion. “And how are you hoping to get it?”

“I don’t know,” Shiro admits. “But I’m determined.” His stomach grumbles, and he flushes again, reaching into his knapsack. “Sorry. Haven’t eaten in a while.” He digs through and finds the stash of daifuku, unwrapping it, noticing the man’s eyes follow it curiously. “Would you like some?”

“I can’t,” he says, looking disappointed; maybe he has some sort of special diet or allergy. Shiro mentally shrugs, biting down, sighing at the squishy texture and subtle sweetness of the red bean paste. How long will it be until he has another one of these? Will he ever have something homemade again?

“What are you hoping to find?” Shiro echoes, still chewing; he can feel his grandmother smacking his arm in exasperation at his manners, and fights of a wave of sorrow.

“My mother,” the man says, crossing his legs, bare underneath his garment; Shiro gentlemanly does not glance downwards, though he catches a curving line across one of his ankles, trailing on the floor like a ribbon. “I have some questions that haven’t been answered, and it’s taking longer than I thought.”

“I’m sorry. I hope you find them.”

“Well, that’s what leads us here: answers.”

“I hope,” Shiro says, finishing off his snack and looking around the room for a trash can. There seems to be none, so he slips the plastic wrapping into his jeans pocket. “I failed something,” he continues, strangely honest in a way he's never been, “and came home, and no one wanted a failure. Just someone to pity, or someone else entirely. I had no life there, and possibly none until I find it.”

“You have plenty of life left, Takashi Shirogane.”

Shiro freezes. “How do you…”

“I can sense these things.” The man smiles, and this time, Shiro’s sure—his teeth are proper canines, eyes as intense as headlights. “If it bothers you, you may know my name in exchange: Keith.”

“Keith,” Shiro says slowly. Around him, the shadows dance, faster and faster, and the bar seems to not be empty at all, with forms of shapes at the tables, leaning against walls, even watching them from the bottom of the stage. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

Keith’s voice is as smooth and sweet as custard: “I survive by siphoning life, though not in the way you think, so I do not grow older before I find my answers. But I also have gotten accustomed to travel, and this is one of the in-between spaces where I do not have to take anything, though it brings me closer and closer to who I once was.

"You look like a woman I saw a long time ago, wanting to escape expectations but couldn’t fully do so until she said her goodbyes, but there’s less of a chance of that happening with you. You’re afraid of disappointment, of pressure, but you’re not afraid to run and never look back. And you’re not afraid because you are dying, though at a faster speed than other humans. You want to burn brightly before you go, but not foolishly perish alone—you want purpose and exploration, but to share those with someone who wishes the same.

"Am I right? Do I know you, Takashi Shirogane?”

Shiro swallows. The daifuku is in danger of coming up. “I guess you do.” He looks around, trying to calm his heartbeat. “I’m afraid my grandmother didn’t give me any specifics, so I’m a bit slow to catch on. Can I even get off this train?”

“Yes,” Keith admits, “but once you do, it’s lost to you forever.”

“Where does it go?” His mind is whirling, trying to take everything in. Why had his grandmother sent him here? There had been no fear in her voice, only wistfulness. She would never intentionally put him on a path that would hurt him.

“Where do you want it to go?”

“I don’t know,” Shiro says honestly.

“Then it will keep going.”

“Are there any other humans here?”

“No.” Keith slips off his seat, landing as quietly as a cat. His feet are bare, pale as his robe and immaculately clean. “Unless I count.”

Shiro doesn’t know what to reply to that.

“I suppose I don’t,” Keith says, almost to himself. “Anyway, you can’t stay in the cabin the whole time. We do have rooms, and you get a pick.”

“I don’t have much money,” Shiro replies stupidly.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re a guest here, and it’s my duty to provide. Would you like a sleeping tonic?”

Shiro looks again at the jars; he swears some contents are shifting. “No,” he says as politely as possible, although his heart rate's increased full-speed: from excitement or fear, he doesn't know. “But please allow me to get my bag, and you can show me the way.”

Keith smiles, and lifts a lantern Shiro’s never seen, all glass enclosed around a single flickering flame. “Excellent. Enjoy your stay, Shiro.”

**Author's Note:**

> Say hi to me on [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/annaofaza)


End file.
